The Thames River Murders (30 page)

“I see.” Grenville pondered this. “I imagine Bennett pointed you in Coombs’s direction for a reason. If he had to go down, so did Coombs.” Grenville sipped more brandy. “Those poor women. Although, I am happy they will be free of him.”

“He had to be mad,” Brewster said with conviction. “Bennett, I mean. My missus is furious if I even wink at a woman. I can’t imagine hiding another wife and entire family from her, let alone two or three. She’d have it out of me in no time. And then she’d kill me.”

“Bennett’s wives were not gifted with keen intelligence,” Grenville pointed out. “He seemed careful to choose those who were trusting and naive.”

“True.” Brewster nodded.

“Whatever their natures, they should not have—” I broke off my statement, frowning. I’d heard a creak on the stairs, or so I thought.

I rose. The room had grown dim as the sun finally decided to sink, but it was still early twilight. Daylight lingered for a long time in June.

By this light, I saw the door swing open. The man who stood in its outline was my father.

I halted. No—not my father. The vicar at Parson’s Point in Norfolk had buried him nearly ten years ago, and everyone in the village had breathed a collective sigh of relief. My father was dead and gone.

But this man could have been his twin, though much younger.

Then I realized—he could be
my
twin.

Grenville had also risen, gaping. “Good Lord.”

The man stood my height, had the same dark, unruly hair, and brown eyes. He had my build, but he stood straighter, without my broken limb. His face was not quite the same, I saw, in that second. The touch of another lineage had shaped it.

Brewster was on his feet, hands balled. “Who are ye?” he demanded.
 

“The one you ruined,” the man said to me, his deep growl much like mine, though his accent held a touch of the colonies. “And so, I ruin you.”

A pistol came out of the folds of his coat. He pointed it straight at me, and fired.

Chapter Thirty

I saw the kick of the gun, the flash. Heard the roar, smelled the stench of gunpowder.

The bullet never reached me. Brewster, snarling, launched himself into me and pushed me out of the way. We fell together in a heap, Brewster a dead weight on top of me.

“Lacey!” Grenville was shouting. “Hey! Stop him! Help!”

Boots on the stairs announced the man running, Grenville after him. I shoved at Brewster. “I’m fine. Get up.”

A groan answered me. I scrambled out from under Brewster’s heavy body and looked down at him in shock.

Blood seeped from Brewster’s gut to stain his rough linen shirt. His face was dead white, eyes open and filled with pain.

“Damnation,” I snarled.

I ran for the bedchamber, snatched every towel I could find, and rushed back to the front room. I jerked open Brewster’s shirt and pressed the folded towels hard to his abdomen.

He’d taken the bullet on the left side of his stomach, I saw before I pushed the towels down. The bullet had not come through into me or the floor, so it was still inside him.

“The surgeon,” I said urgently. “You’ll need him. Where is he?”

Brewster shook his head the slightest bit.
 

Grenville burst back inside. “I couldn’t catch him. I grabbed a patrolman, told him to spread the alert.” He switched his gaze to Brewster, and stopped. “Good Lord.”
 

“Tell me where to find the surgeon,” I said to Brewster. “You don’t want
me
to take out the bullet. It’s too tricky.” I had done such things before, but I’d prefer the steady hands of the man so well trained.

Brewster continued to shake his head. “Denis won’t like it.”

“I don’t give a damn.” I put into my voice the note that had terrified my soldiers on the Peninsula. “
Tell me
, damn and blast you. Or Denis will be the least of your worries.”

Brewster wheezed, his words growing fainter. “Captain …”
 

“If you don’t do it for your own sake, or mine, do it for your wife’s. Do you want to leave Emily alone?”

Brewster’s eyes snapped open again. He had difficulty focusing, but he managed to speak. “King’s Court. Off Great Wild Street.”

“I’ll go,” Grenville said. “It’s not far.”

Without waiting for argument, he was off again, running faster than I ever dreamed he could. Grenville was an athlete, however much he hid it, riding, walking, fencing, dancing, and boxing with enviable skill.

“Tell Em,” Brewster whispered. “You know what to tell her.”

His eyes slid closed.

I pressed down harder with the towel. I did not want him to sleep—he might die before the surgeon could even arrive.

“Brewster,” I said sharply. “No, wake up and talk to me.” I shook him. My voice cracked. “Thomas. Tommy …”

***

When Grenville returned in about twenty minutes, he not only brought the surgeon, but also James Denis.

Denis’s face was dark with rage. I rarely saw him this angry—only when one of his men got hurt.

He said nothing at all, only stood aside while the surgeon fell to his knees next to Brewster, a canvas bag clinking to the floor beside him.

The surgeon looked over the little I’d done: a folded blanket for Brewster’s head, the towels on his abdomen, the smaller blanket I’d spread across his legs to keep him warm, the basin of water standing ready.

“Should we put him on the bed?” I asked.

“Not yet.” The surgeon spoke with clipped, decisive words. His hands, thin and deft, skimmed the wound, feeling around it. Brewster’s eyes opened and widened in pain, but the surgeon quickly finished.

“Give him this.” The surgeon handed me a flask.

I obediently sat down at Brewster’s side, lifted his head with my arm, and poured the liquid into his throat.

Brewster swallowed. “Aw, that’s foul,” he whispered, but the draught stayed down.

I had no idea what the surgeon had given him. I expected brandy or laudanum, but the odor was wrong for either. Brewster’s face went slack, but he breathed hoarsely, and grunted in pain when the surgeon probed him again.

“Hold him down,” the surgeon said.

I put my arm across Brewster’s chest. Grenville got down on the carpet, regardless of his pristine clothes, and held on to his legs.

I could not see all that the surgeon did, but there was the flash of a very thin knife and the scent of blood. Then the man reached into Brewster with the slenderest pair of forceps I’d ever seen.

His hand was steady, without a tremor. Slowly he pulled out a round iron ball and dropped it onto my carpet.

Immediately, he pressed the towels to the wound again. Surgeons I’d observed in the army would let a wound bleed a bit, to clean it. This surgeon kept the towels on Brewster and ordered Grenville to shove the basin over to him.

My carpet grew sodden with blood and water as the surgeon used nearly a gallon of the stuff to wash out the wound. He then sewed up the gash with needle and thread, his stitches smaller and neater than the elegant stitching on my wife’s underclothing.

The surgeon washed the wound again when he was finished, wrapped a long bandage around Brewster’s middle, and rose.

“Heave him on the bed now—carefully. Don’t break the stitching. He doesn’t move after that until I say so.”

I carefully took Brewster by the shoulders. His eyes were open, gleaming with pain, but clouded by whatever drug he’d been given.
 

It was not Grenville who took his legs, but Denis. He lifted Brewster with careful strength, letting me guide us all into the bedroom. Grenville came behind with the blankets and whatever towels could be salvaged. The surgeon, I saw, with some surprise, had poured water into another bowl and now threw his instruments into it.

Denis’s strength came to me through Brewster’s body. I’d known the man was strong when we’d fought for our lives in Norfolk, but it came as a sharp reminder that he’d begun life struggling for survival. Denis so often sat still while he directed others to do things for him that I forgot about his brute strength, just as I forgot Grenville’s agility.

I gave Denis a nod when I was ready, and we lifted Brewster as one and placed him on the bed. Brewster gave another grunt of pain, his eyelids fluttering, then he settled down.

Denis stepped back, and Grenville and I carefully laid the blankets over Brewster’s inert body.

The surgeon came to look him over. “Keep him warm. If he takes a fever, give him more of this.” He set the flask on the bedside table. “Not more than a swallow or two at a time.”

“What is it?” I asked in curiosity.

“An extract of a native plant from the Americas,” the surgeon said. “I do not know its true name. A sage of some kind.” He continued before I could ask more questions. “The bullet did not penetrate any organs, so he should mend. Keep him here, and do not let him move. Feed him if he wants food, but not too much. Someone will have to nurse him.”

“Em,” Brewster whispered.

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “I’ll bring her. You and she are welcome to stay as long as you need.”

The surgeon gave me a final nod, the last of the sunlight touching his balding head. “I will return in three days.”

Without further word, he walked out. I followed, but the surgeon moved quickly, and I did not catch him until he’d reached the bottom of the stairwell.

“What do I owe you?” I asked him. “Beyond what Denis pays you, I mean. You saved his life.”

The surgeon looked me up and down, his eyes so cold, with no pride in what he’d just done. “As I told you before, Captain, my price is silence. I have no other.”

With that, he opened the door and walked out into the darkening lane.

Grenville came clattering down after him. “Strange fellow, but remarkable.” He put on his hat. “I am off to fetch the good Mrs. Brewster. Poor lady—I’ll break it as gently as I can.”

“Thank you. Can you also get word to Donata? Tell her what has happened and to keep Gabriella home. Tell her I will come as soon as I can.”

“I’ve sent Jackson back to Mayfair already,” Grenville said. “The surgeon’s house was close enough and the streets so crowded it was easy for me to go on foot.”
 

A knot eased inside me. Grenville was a good friend and a wise man.

Grenville continued. “Mr. Denis requests that I send you up to him. I believe he wishes to confer.”

“Mr. Denis is eager to give orders in my own rooms,” I said, but I was too tired and worried for anger.

“No doubt he wants to know what happened. He saw me as I went sprinting down Drury Lane and into the heart of molly territory. I shudder to think of the newspapers tomorrow. Denis insisted that his carriage bring us back, but I have never seen him so angry. Even that business in Norfolk didn’t enrage him as much I think.”

Grenville nodded at me, slipped out the door, and was gone.

I climbed the stairs and entered my front room. Denis had moved there, and was lighting candles. He was not one for sitting in the dark. He’d also drawn my curtains, so that the light would not show us to those outside.

Denis pointed to the chair by the fireplace, indicating I should sit. “Tell me about this man who shot Mr. Brewster.”

To remind him of my independence, I took the straight chair at the writing desk. I soon regretted my decision, because my leg was starting to ache, with a deep hurt that I knew would stay with me for days.

“I know nothing about him,” I said. “He has been sending me threatening letters, he rode at Peter and me in the park, and tonight he shot at me. He looks like me and has my voice, though he sounds as though he’s been living elsewhere in the world. I’d never seen him before.”

Denis took the wing chair and cross his trousered legs. “A relation?”

I shrugged, pain seeping through my entire body now. “If so, I’ve never known of him.”

Denis touched his fingertips together. “I will find him, have no fear of it. I will explain to him that I do not like gentlemen shooting one of my own.”

“To be fair, he was aiming at me, not Brewster. Brewster jumped in the way.”

Denis’s eyes went hard. “I was talking about
you
.”

I met his gaze as silence fell between us.

I did not want to belong to him; I hadn’t from the day I’d met him. And yet, there now existed between us a complicated mesh of obligation, favors, secrets, and gratitude that I would never untangle. I did not know whether Denis had won the game, or entangled himself in it as well.

“I would be obliged,” I began, “if you would keep this person away from my family.”

“That shall be done,” Denis said. “I sent two of my men to South Audley Street as soon as Mr. Grenville babbled out what had happened.”

More knots loosened. “Thank you.”

Denis merely rested his hands on the arms of the wing chair. He hated being demonstrative.

We waited in silence for a little while. One of the candles, wax, Donata had insisted, gently crackled as its wick drew up fuel.

My curiosity would never let me sit quietly for long. “The surgeon,” I said, “who remains nameless. What on earth did he do?”

Denis’s brows lifted a fraction. “He is a killer.”

So Brewster had intimated when I’d first asked.
Knows exactly where to stick the knife if he has to …
Brewster had said.

“More specifically?” I asked. “Did he do away with his wife? A patient? He seems so very cool that I cannot imagine him losing his temper and stabbing a man with his scalpel.”

“There is nothing amusing about him, Lacey. I will tell you so that you do not go blundering about asking
him
. He murdered, not one man, but a dozen.”

I went still. “A dozen?”

I’d killed men myself, in Mysore, on the Peninsula, in other places during the long wars. I’d fought for my life, to win battles, to take my men to safety.

One man killing another in anger, in a fight or struggle in London’s streets was understandable. A dozen bordered on horror.

“Why? Is he a madman?” I’d never met a calmer, more collected madman if so. “Please do not tell me he killed his patients for the scientific knowledge of it.”